Thoughts on Life, Love, Politics, Hypocrisy and Coming Out in Mid-Life

Monday, August 07, 2017

Is Trump Preparing His Base for the Worse or Insurrection?

Today, Donald Trump yet again attacked the news media and ranted to his Kool-Aid drinking supporters that the entire Russiagate investigation was based on fabrications an suggested that it may have as its goal to steal the rightful election from him - and, of course, them. This is taking Trump's demagoguery to new levels and suggests he may seek to cause a severe upheaval if Robert Mueller's investigation produces damaging information on Trump, his family members, or campaign. A piece in the Washington Post looks at this growing prospect. Here are highlights:

President Trump is again attacking the media this morning,
and his broadsides carry a newly ominous edge: He is both faulting the media
for allegedly downplaying the size and intensity of support from his base and
accusing them of trying to deliberately weaken that
support for him.This comes some 24 hours after deputy attorney general
Rod Rosenstein told “Fox News Sunday” that if the special counsel finds evidence of crimes
in the course of his probe into Russian sabotage of our election, it may be
within the scope of his investigation to pursue them.

In these seemingly disparate developments, it is hard not
to discern the potential for a volatile, combustible combination.

Because Trump is undermining our democratic
norms and processes in so many ways, it is often easy to focus on each of them
in isolation, rather than as part of the same larger story. But, taken
together, they point to a possible climax in which Trump, cornered by
revelations unearthed by Robert Mueller III’s probe and by ongoing media
scrutiny, seeks to rally his supporters behind the idea that this outcome
represents not the imposition of accountability by functioning civic
institutions, but rather an effort to steal the election from him — and from
them.

It bears repeating that Mueller’s investigation is
looking at how a hostile foreign power may have sabotaged our democracy, and at whether the Trump campaign
colluded with it, and at
conduct by Trump himself that came after the
election: Whether the firing of former FBI director James B. Comey after a
demand for his loyalty was part of a pattern of obstruction of justice. The
first of these has been attested to by our intelligence services, and evidence
of the second (at least in the form of a willingness to
collude) and the third of these has been unearthed by
dogged scrutiny by the news media. It is hardly an accident that Trump
continues to cast doubt on the credibility of both those institutions, even as
he and his spokespeople continue to cast the entire affair as an effort to reverse the election by illegitimate means.

This threatens damage on multiple levels. By
casting the entire Russia story as fiction, Trump seeks to undermine the
credibility of efforts to determine how our electoral system might be
vulnerable to further attacks, separate
and irrespective of what is learned about the Trump campaign’s
conduct, possibly making it less likely that we secure our system against
any such future sabotage.

[I]t’s also easy to envision the flip side:
Trump demagoguing his supporters into a frenzy of rage, at rallies that
are exactly like the ones we’ve seen in recent days, in the face of legitimate revelations.

[I]t’s likely that more future revelations about
Trump’s unfitness for the presidency will further undercut his efforts to cast
institutions holding him accountable as illegitimate. But Trump is already
giving every indication that he will go all out in trying. And how much damage
that will cause is anyone’s guess.

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

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